At the La Crosse Sailing Club, racing is part of its history. We encourage all of our members to participate in our racing events and seminars by making all club racing free of fees for members. Workshops are held to help novice to expert sailors and racers understand right-of-way rules, starting and finishing techniques, tips, tricks and trim. We strive to be helpful to everyone knowing that it makes all of us better sailors.
The board of directors has made racing part of the club dues and there is no additional charge to race your boat in the appropriate fleet.
Our current one-design fleets consist of Day Sailers and Lasers. We also offer handicap racing using the Portsmouth Yardstick as our rating system for keel boats (cruisers). This system not only accommodates the cruising fleet but also has ratings for centerboard, dagger board and multi-hull boats as well.
September 2020 Racing Photos...
Racing is held on Thursdays beginning at 6:30pm. Send the make and length of your boat to Keelboat Racing Scorekeeper Markham Chatterton at dniceboater@gmail.com to be included.
2022 Early Series: May 5, May 12, May 19, May 26, June 2, June 9, June 16, June 23
2022 Late Series: July 14, July 21, July 28, August 4, August 11, August 18, August 25, September 1
The LaCrosse Laser Fleet will be racing every Tuesday evening with the first start at 6pm. The first race of the season is scheduled to begin on May 4, 2021. Fall racing starts earlier to avoid darkness.
Laser Racing Captains are Kurt Schroeder 608-769-0116 and Mark Kastel 608-625-2042.
With over 190,000 boats on the water, the Laser is the most popular racing boat, period. With good used boat starting at about $1500, and new boats at about five grand, Lasers are said to have the best fun-to-cost ratio of anything you can race….and the fact that there’s no crew required, and almost no maintenance, it also allows for the best fun-to-hassle ratio.
The La Crosse fleet offers some of the top competition in the Midwest and also an extremely congenial group interested in helping sailors new to racing get their feet wet. Click here for Laser Facts and more information.
Day Sailers race on Wednesday evenings, with the first start at 6pm. Contact Andy Plzak if you are interested in racing.
▪ The Fleet is family-friendly and welcomes newcomers to racing. Spinakers are optional.
▪ We need a minimum of 2 boats to begin a race.
▪ In the event of complete cancellation of racing on a scheduled Wednesday (due to bad weather, wind, flooding, etc.) we will attempt to complete the races on the next Saturday afternoon starting at 12 p.m. If Saturday is also a bust then we will schedule the races the following Monday evening starting at 6 p.m.
▪ If Wednesday, Saturday and Monday all fail we will abandon scoring the races for the scheduled Wednesday. We may occasionally specify courses with longer legs to encourage the use of spinnakers.
▪ The Day Sailer Class is a one-design class that sails with main, jib and spinnaker. You do not have to use a spinnaker to compete and there is no handicap given to any boat whether or not they use a spinnaker.
▪ It is each skipper's responsibility to ensure that their boat meets the class specifications in order to ensure fair competition. On the Day Sailer website you can find: Measurements and Rigging and Tuning Guides
▪ Please join the Day Sailer Association and help boost the membership. You must be a current DSA member to race in any sanctioned regattas, and to race in the NACR you also must have been a member the previous year. Cost is just $35 per year. Day Sailer Association Membership: To join the Day Sailer Association, go to the website: https://daysailer.org/
▪ Following racing on any given evening or Saturday, plan to gather for food and beverages and some racing discussions.
Standard starting sequence applies: Several short horns in quick succession can be sounded inside 30 seconds before the 5 minute warning to ready racers for the start of the race sequence.
5 min warning class flag up with horn
4 min prep flag up with horn
1 min prep flag down with horn
0 min start—class flag down with horn
The LAX Sailing Club is a cooperative of sailboat owners, who share the responsibilities of maintaining the club grounds and various events for sailors.
